This past spring, Ferris Graphic Design students Haley Hawes, Ashley Kasul, Brandon Knap, and Alex Papin took second place in the national Brand X Experience Design Student Competition. While winning the $2,000 prize was a bonus, the most important thing these young designers learned is that their experience in the design program at Ferris has fully equipped them for success. The team was able to take skills they have built up over the past three years and create a mock marketing campaign for Under Armour, which beat out 60 other teams from around the country.

Competitor Ashley Kasul said, “The classwork in the associate degree really helped as building blocks for the project, such as learning good layout, composition, and typography. Junior year classwork was what really helped us to keep up with the project requirements, because we had been learning about brand experiences, which directly applied to the experience marketing nature of the competition.”

As many know, the Graphic Design program at Ferris is unlike most in that it is situated within the College of Business, whereas most universities position it as a fine arts major. Ferris design students are required to take a number of marketing and business courses, which proved to be extremely helpful in the case of these competitors.

“This experience exposed us all to the large scope of experience marketing and how design fits into that particular field. Experience marketing isn't taught in many schools, which makes the design program here special because we branch out to cover experience design. With a business background, we are actually capable of successfully designing for experience marketing, unlike fine arts degrees in design or even other marketing majors," said Ashley.

Students had six weeks to create their mock experiential marketing campaign for Under Armour's winter Olympic sponsorship. The competition began in March, and students were required to create an extensive campaign completely centered around experience design. Competitor Haley Hawes and her teammates were able to undertake this project in addition to their normal class work, thanks to their familiarity with working under pressure.

Haley said, “I think the most important thing that the design program at Ferris has taught me is time-management. I was able to take on this extra project because I knew how to prioritize projects and get everything done on time without stressing out or feeling like I was in over my head. Sure, at times it was a lot to handle, but the design program has taught me how to deal with the stress of dealing with multiple large-scale projects so I can still get things done.”

Congratulations to our Ferris Design students on their big win!
For more information regarding these competitors’ victory at Brand X, see the following articles: